Terrorism
Meets Reactionism

October 2001

When almost-elected president George
W. Bush announced his “war on terrorism” in the aftermath of the September
11 attacks, he also was launching a campaign to advance the agenda of
the reactionary Right at home and abroad. This includes rolling back
an already mangled federal human services sector, reverting to deficit
spending for the benefit of a wealthy creditor class, increasing the
repression of dissent, and expanding to a still greater magnitude the
budgets and global reach of the US military and other components of
the national security state. Indeed, soon after the terrorist attacks,
the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial (September 19), calling on
Bush to quickly take advantage of the “unique political climate” to
“assert his leadership not just on security and foreign policy but across
the board.” The editorial summoned the president to push quickly for
more tax-rate cuts, expanded oil drilling in Alaska, fast-track authority
for trade negotiations, and raids on the Social Security surplus.

More for War

Bush himself noted that the attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon offer “an opportunity” to
“strengthen America.” As numerous conservatives spoke eagerly of putting
the country on a permanent war footing, the president proudly declared
“the first war of the twenty-first century” against an unspecified enemy
to extend over an indefinite time frame. Swept along in the jingoist
tide, that gaggle of political wimps known as the US Congress granted
Bush the power to initiate military action against any nation, organization,
or individual of his choosing, without ever having to proffer evidence
to justify the attack. Such an unlimited grant of arbitrary power—in
violation of international law, the UN charter, and the US Constitution—transforms
the almost-elected president into an absolute monarch who can exercise
life-and-death power over any quarter of the world. Needless to say,
numerous other nations have greeted the president’s elevation to King
of the Planet with something less than enthusiasm.

And King of the Planet is how he is
acting, bombing the already badly battered and impoverished country
of Afghanistan supposedly to “get” Osama bin Laden. Unmentioned in all
this is that US leaders have actively fostered and financed the rise
of the Taliban, and have long refused to go after bin Laden. Meanwhile,
the White House announces that other countries may be bombed at will
and the war will continue for many years. And Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul D. Wolfowitz urges that U.S. armed forces be allowed to engage
in domestic law enforcement, a responsibility that has been denied the
military since 1878.

Under pressure to present a united front
against terrorism, Democratic legislators are rolling over on the issue
of military spending. Opposition to the so-called missile defense shield
seems to have evaporated, as has willingness to preserve the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty. The lawmakers seem ready to come up with most of the
$8.3 billion that the White House says it needs to develop the missile
defense shield and move forward with militarizing outer space. Congress
is marching in lockstep behind Bush's proposal to jack up the military
budget to $328.9 billion for 2002, a spending increase of $38.2 billion
over the enacted FY 2001 budget. Additional funds have been promised
to the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other skulduggery units of the
national security state.

Having been shown that the already gargantuan
defense budget was not enough to stop a group of suicidal hijackers
armed with box cutters, Bush and Congress thought it best to pour still
more money into the pockets of the military-industrial cartel. (Incidentally,
the next largest arms budget is Russia’s at $51 billion. If we add up
the defense allocations of all the leading industrial nations, it comes
to less than what the United States is already spending.)

Wag the Dog

Many of the measures being taken to
“fight terrorism” have little to do with actual security and are public
relations ploys designed to (a) heighten the nation's siege psychology
and (b) demonstrate that the government has things under control. So
aircraft carriers are deployed off the coast of New York to “guard the
city”; national guardsmen dressed in combat fatigues and armed with
automatic weapons “patrol the airports”; sidewalk baggage check-ins
and electronic tickets are prohibited supposedly to create "greater
security." Since increased security leads to greater inconvenience,
it has been decided that greater inconvenience will somehow increase
security—or at least give the appearance of greater security.

Then there is that biggest public relations
ploy of all, the bombing of hillsides and villages in Afghanistan, leaving
us with the reassuring image of Uncle Sam striking back at the terrorists.
To stop the bombing, the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden to a
third country to stand trial, now without even seeing any evidence against
him. But this was rejected by the White House. It seems that displaying
US retaliatory power and establishing a military presence in that battered
country are the primary US goals, not apprehending bin Laden.

Lost in all this is the fact that US
leaders have been the greatest purveyors of terrorism throughout the
world. In past decades they or their surrogate mercenary forces have
unleashed terror bombing campaigns against unarmed civilian populations,
destroying houses, schools, hospitals, churches, hotels, factories,
farms, bridges, and other nonmilitary targets in Vietnam, Cambodia,
Laos, East Timor, the Congo, Panama, Grenada, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and numerous other countries,
causing death and destruction to millions of innocents. Using death
squad terrorism US leaders have also been successful in destroying reformist
and democratic movements in scores of countries. Of course hardly a
word of this is uttered in the corporate media, leaving Bush and company
free to parade themselves as the champions of peace and freedom.

In time, the American people may catch
wise that the reactionaries in the White House have not the slightest
clue about how they are going to save us from future assaults. They
seem more interested in—and are certainly more capable of—taking advantage
of terrorist attacks than in preventing them. They have neither the
interest nor the will to make the kind of major changes in policy that
would dilute the hatred so many people around the world feel toward
US power. They are too busy handing the world over to the transnational
corporate giants at the expense of people everywhere. And as of now,
they have no intention of making a 180 degree shift away from unilateral
global domination and toward collective betterment and mutual development.

Reactionary Offensive on the Home
Front

Several bills pending in Congress are
designed to expand the definition of terrorism to include all but the
most innocuous forms of protest. S 1510, for example, treats terrorism
as any action that might potentially put another person at risk. The
bill gives the Feds power to seize the assets of any organization or
individual deemed to be aiding or abetting “terrorist activity.” And
it can be applied retroactively without a statute of limitations. A
telephone interview I did with Radio Tehran in mid-October, trying to
explain why US foreign policy is so justifiably hated around the world,
might qualify me for detention as someone who is abetting terrorism.

Other bills will expand the authority
of law enforcement officials to use wiretaps, detain immigrants, subpoena
email and Internet records, and infiltrate protest organizations. Some
nine hundred people have already been rounded up and put into “preventive
detention,” with no charges brought against them and no legal redress.
In keeping with the reactionary Right’s agenda, the war against terrorism
has become a cover for the war against democratic dissent and public
sector services. The message is clear, America must emulate not Athens
but Sparta.

One of the White House’s earliest steps
to protect the country from terrorist violence was to cut from the proposed
federal budget the $15.7 million slated to assist little children who
are victims of domestic abuse or abandonment. Certainly a nation at
war has no resources to squander on battered kids or other such frills.
Instead Congress passed a $40 billion supplemental, including $20 billion
for “recovery efforts,” much of it to help clean up and repair New York’s
financial district.

Bush then came up with an “emergency
package” for the airlines, $5 billion in direct cash and $10 billion
in loan guarantees, with the promise of billions more. The airlines
were beset by fiscal problems well before the September attacks. This
bailout has little to do with fighting terrorism. The costs for greater
airport security will mostly likely be picked up by the federal government.
And taken together, the loss of four planes by United and American Airlines,
the impending lawsuits by victims’ families, and higher insurance rates
do not of themselves create industry-wide insolvency, and do not justify
a multibillion dollar bailout. The real story is that once the industry
was deregulated, the airlines began overcapitalizing without sufficient
regard for earnings, the assumption being that profits would follow
after a company squeezed its competitors to the wall by grabbing a larger
chunk of the market. So the profligate diseconomies of “free market”
corporate competition are once more picked up by the US taxpayer—this
time in the name of fighting terrorism.

Meanwhile some 80,000 airline employees
were laid off in the several weeks after the terrorist attack, including
ticket agents, flight attendants, pilots, mechanics, and ramp workers.
They will not see a penny of the windfall reaped by the airline plutocrats
and shareholders, whose patriotism does not extend to giving their employees
a helping hand. At one point in the House debate, a frustrated Rep.
Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) shouted out, “Why in this chamber do the big dogs
always eat first?” Inslee was expressing his concerns about the 20,000
to 30,000 Boeing workers who were being let go without any emergency
allocation for their families. Sen. Peter G. Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) expressed
a similar sentiment when casting the lone dissenting vote in the Senate
against the airline bailout: “Congress should be wary of indiscriminately
dishing out taxpayer dollars to prop up a failing industry without demanding
something in return for taxpayers.” It remained for Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton (D-N.Y.) to explain on behalf of the Bush warmongers why the
handout was necessary: “We need to look at transportation again as part
of our national defense.”

The post-September 11 anti-terrorism
hype is serving as an excuse to silence any opposition to drilling in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Our nation needs oil to maintain
its strength and security, we hear. Against this manipulative message,
the environment does not stand much of a chance. Likewise, US Trade
representative Zoellick enlisted the terrorism hype in the White House'
s campaign to surrender our democratic sovereignty to corporate dominated
international trade councils. In a Washington Post op-ed (September
20) Zoellick charged that opposition to fast track and globalization
was akin to supporting the terrorists. House Republican leaders joined
in, claiming that trade legislation was needed to solidify the global
coalition fighting terrorism. Here was yet another overreaching opportunistic
attempt to wrap the flag around a reactionary special interest.

Actually it is the free trade agreements
that threaten our democratic sovereignty. All public programs and services
that regulate or infringe in any way upon big-money corporate capitalism
can be rolled back by industry-dominated oligarchic trade councils.
Corporations can now tell governments—including our federal, state,
and local governments—what public programs and regulations are acceptable
or unacceptable. The reactionaries do not explain how giving private,
nonelective, corporate-dominated trade councils a supranational supreme
power to override our laws and our Constitution will help in the war
against terrorism.

Looting the Surplus

The bailout to the airline industry
is only part of the spending spree that the White House has in store
for us. Bush now endorses a “stimulus” of $60 billion to $75 billion
to lift the country out of recession by “recharging business investment.”
He also has called for an additional $60 billion tax cut which, like
previous tax reductions, would give meager sums to ordinary folks and
lavish amounts to fat cats and plutocrats. Where is all this money for
defense, war, internal security, airlines, rebuilding lower Manhattan,
tax cuts, and recharging the economy coming from? Much of it is from
the Social Security surplus fund—which is why Bush is so eager to spend.

It is a myth that conservatives are
practitioners of fiscal responsibility. Rightwing politicians who sing
hymns to a balanced budget have been among the wildest deficit spenders.
In twelve years (1981-1992) the Reagan-Bush administrations increased
the national debt from $850 billion to $4.5 trillion. By early 2000,
the debt had climbed to over $5.7 trillion. The deficit is pumped up
by two things: first, successive tax cuts to rich individuals and corporations—so
that the government increasingly borrows from the wealthy creditors
it should be taxing, and second, titanic military budgets. In twelve
years, the Reagan-Bush expenditures on the military came to $3.7 trillion.
In eight years, Bill Clinton spent over $2 trillion on the military.

The payments on the national debt amount
to about $350 billion a year, representing a colossal upward redistribution
of income from working taxpayers to rich creditors. The last two Clinton
budgets were the first to trim away the yearly deficit and produce a
surplus. The first Bush budget also promised to produce a surplus, almost
all of it from Social Security taxes. As a loyal representative of financial
interests, George W., like his daddy, prefers the upward redistribution
of income that comes with a large deficit. The creditor class, composed
mostly of superrich individuals and financial institutions, wants this
nation to be in debt to it—the same way it wants every other nation
to be in debt to it.

Furthermore, the reactionary enemies
of Social Security have long argued that the fund will eventually become
insolvent and must therefore be privatized (We must destroy the fund
in order to save it.) But with Social Security continuing to produce
record surpluses, this argument becomes increasingly implausible. By
defunding Social Security, either through privatization or deficit spending
or both, Bush achieves a key goal of the reactionary agenda.

How Far the Flag?

As of October 2001, almost-elected president
Bush sported a 90 percent approval rating, as millions rallied around
the flag. A majority support his military assault upon the people of
Afghanistan, in the mistaken notion that this will stop terrorism and
protect US security. But before losing heart, keep a few things in mind.
There are millions of people who, though deeply disturbed by the terrible
deeds of September 11, and apprehensive about future attacks, are not
completely swept up in the reactionary agenda. Taking an approach that
would utilize international law and diplomacy has gone unmentioned in
the corporate media, yet 30 percent of Americans support that option,
compared to 54 percent who support military actions (with 16 percent
undecided) according to a recent Gallup poll. Quite likely a majority
of Americans would support an international law approach if they had
ever heard it discussed and explained seriously.

In any case, there are millions of people
in the US who want neither protracted wars nor a surrender of individual
rights and liberties, nor drastic cuts in public services and retirement
funds. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets not to hail the chief
but to oppose his war and his reactionary agenda. Even among the flag-waivers,
support for Bush seems to be a mile wide and an inch deep. The media-pumped
jingoistic craze that grips the United States today is mostly just that,
a craze. In time, it grows stale and reality returns. One cannot pay
the grocery bills with flags or pay the rent with vengeful slogans.

My thoughts go back to another President
Bush, George the first, who early in 1991 had an approval rating of
93 percent, and a fawning resolution from Congress hailing his “unerring
leadership.” Yet within the year, he was soundly defeated for reelection
by a garrulous governor from Arkansas. Those who believe in democracy
must be undeterred in their determination to educate, organize, and
agitate. In any case, swimming against the current is always preferable
to being swept over the waterfall.